DREAD - a GONE fanfiction
by Eliza M Glenn
Summary: Mackenzie Lorenzo wasn't feared before her time in the FAYZ, but her sudden alliance with Drake Merwin and the Fearless Leader, as well as the discovery of her newfound abilities, change her life for the worse. Wars are being waged, brother is turning on brother. And it's not just the people with powers that are causing the problems in the FAYZ anymore.
1. ONE

"On three. Ready?"

Garret Hill's palms were heavy with fatigue. The calibre handgun wedged between his thumb and the palm of his hand didn't help balance the weight.

"One."

He was only ten, the freckles on his face were still considered adorable. His face hadn't really developed yet, no signs of spots from puberty, or anything. And he was still on the front line in a major battle; bound to lose, bound to die. The boy had learned not to think about that, though.

"Two."

Garret watched with a dazed intrigue at Edilio Escobar, right at the front of the hoard of scared pre-teens, trying to resist the urge to comfort them but knowing that they were too young to know how to grow up. Garret's hands shook painfully.

Edilio stopped counting, knowing that they wouldn't get an opening like that one again. Also knowing that the opening would be useless without Garret taking advantage of it.

"Garret, I'm sorry, but you get why, right? Why I have to make you go?"

Garret nodded quickly, crouching down behind a boulder a good distance away. He couldn't let the others be seen by the troops patrolling the plant. He knew why. He was the most qualified shooter, and the fastest runner by a long way.

"Okay, man. It'll never be completely clear, but when you see a good opening, go for it."

The boy looked at his commander, reluctant to leave, reluctant to abandon his team and become a shooting target.

"Thanks, Edilio," he said.

"Thank me when you get back," Edilio said confidently. Garret shook his head.

"If I don-"

"I don't wanna here it, man."

"Will you tell them what I did?" He asked.

Edilio crawled on his hands and knees towards the boy and placed a strong hand on his shoulder. "You can tell the-"

"Please."

Edilio didn't know what to say. Something that showed his faith that this plan would work would be good, but he couldn't think of anything. And he wasn't entirely sure if this was a good idea anyway.

Garret saw an opening and left in seconds, threading through guards - who weren't much older than him - until he got to the side entrance of the power plant. Sam's heated hole was blackened around the edges. Garret had heard the stories, back when the FAYZ was just starting to fall to pieces. When he was a useless kid, crying to get food instead of working like everyone else.

He turned to face the two outstanding boulders, where most Edilio's men were panicking or awaiting his return.

He balled his shaking hands into strong fists, stepping though the hole to reach his target.

Garret wanted Sam Temple back.

Drake Merwin tried to sleep in the plant's head office. Caine was outside, in the main control room, and this was the best place to get a good night's rest.

But Drake couldn't sleep. For some reason, he found himself; his body, his mind, totally restless. He rolled over in a fruitless attempt to slow the pace of his heart, thrumming like a large percussion band in his chest, shaking his ribcage.

He raged at his lack of sleep. As well as the continuous vibrations from the plant's inner systems. The office might have had the most comfortable bed, but it definitely wasn't as quiet as the storage unit.

The door burst open to Drake's annoyance, and Diana waltzed smoothly inside, inspecting a fingernail casually.

Drake saw through the movement easily, Diana's fingernails were nothing but stubbs from days of near-starvation, and her pretty face was sweating and nervous.

"Caine wants you, something about a perimeter check?"

Drake smiled, a devilish, hopeful grin that made whatever fatigue he had left run away. He reached for the rifle on the small office table, holding it close to his torso. Whilst his whip hand wrapped itself comfortably around his waist.

"Perfect."

Drake Merwin headed for the main entrance, looking forward to squishing some running insects.

Dean Winchester followed the line of the highway down and took an abrupt left turn into a dessert, letting the weak pull of something starving guide him along. He was half asleep, carried only by the voices and the invoulentary muscle movements, until he reached the entrance to something dark and cold. A small draft spawned goosebumps on his arm, exposed thanks to a hefty rip on the right sleeve.

He thumbed a lighter in his pocket, needing the small amount of light to see. He held it in front of his face, into the cave. What little light it had to offer, the cave was pitch black.

He turned the lighter off.

"Come to me."

"I have need of you," said the dark.

Dean blindly followed the voice and it's godlike echo. It made him shiver, his irrational fear of the dark consumed him and he turned the lighter on again.

"Lord, we pray thee. We thank thee for thy grace, beauty, and blessing of life. We thank and respect ourselves..."

He stumbled into the cave's entrance, feeling cold but unable to shield himself from the intense breeze. The flame shook like his nervous breath. He'd forgotten the rest of his phoney prayer.

"Amen." His voice shook as he finished. The lighter blew out as his skin grew colder. The cave smelled like damp, enclosed all around him.

"God, help me."


	2. TWO

Mackenzie had taken the boy from the plaza at three. The plan had been to threaten the town with the death of their leader. Mackenzie didn't know a lot, but she thought that there must be someone more than capable of fixing things in town.

The only reason why someone would think to saw him would be...sentiment. Mackenzie chuckled silently, spitting on the word.

The boy looked entirely dull; blonde, tanned, and what most girls would call handsome before Mackenzie had knocked him out with a boot to the side of his head. He didn't look out of place or special in any way.

But with his every movement and breath, she could see his chest moving up and down like a petrified rat trapped in a cage. Undergoing the worst kind of torture - acting as a piece of cheese for an unsuspecting, stupid mouse. And that fascinated her to no extent.

He was sleeping uncomfortably, slouched against a metal wall that seemed to bend him forwards. His eyes were squinted shut, terrified of waking but too nervous about what nightmares his sleep might bring him to actually get some rest.

She fell to the floor on all fours and crawled towards him slowly, carefully. When she was close enough to reach out towards him, his eyes tore open in panic, quickly following an attempt to move his broken arm.

He shivered uncontrollably as Mackenzie approached. She reached out to touch his cheek, eyes like fire, a smile like Satan.

"Don't take this the wrong way," she began, levelling his face with her own, unblinking gaze.

"But your shaking is adorable~"

He slammed his head back against the wall, trying to get as far away from her as humanly possible.

Mackenzie found it all the more cute. The town hero, who had made such a big name of himself in the past few months, was terrified of a girl he'd never seen before.

She heard a door close harshly out in the corridor. A dark-haired, slightly raggedy teenager entered the room. The boy moved his gaze to him.

"Done it?"

She didn't meet her leader's eyes and continued to analyse his brother, like a squirming bacterium underneath a microscope.

"Doing it."

Mackenzie closed her eyes. Now that the boy was completely awake, she could get to work.

It wasn't quite like swimming, more like floating in water. Past the forgotten parts of birth and the colour of the scaffolding that surrounded the neighbors' house, through his unimportant, boring lifestyle, until she came across the right door.

Like being aware in a dream, she forced the door to swing open.

The mind tended to wander endlessly in the manner of a dream, moments progress too quickly for her to see it clearly. Some doors even closed by themselves. Some turned into walls when she looked away.

"There's an ambush on the way, twenty four kids. Maybe not all at once," she began.

"You might not have to worry too much, some of them won't fight. But you might wanna send the old Whip Hand out to slaughter some kiddies."

The boy tensed at the name. Mackenzie already knew why. To make him more uncomfortable, she leaned closer to whisper in his ear.

"He gets off on that."

She opened her eyes and sat up to leave his lap, giving a small nod towards Caine on the way out. He didn't return the gesture. Mackenzie stalked off towards her cardboard box.

She felt the need to lie down and think about the bloody, twisted, petrified face of Sam Temple while she drifted off to sleep.

Edilio watched Garret clamber inside the hole through the cracked scope on his rifle. He'd given the only other gun to a kid called Billy, a semi auto running very low on ammunition. He'd trusted Billy, only because he was good at shooting. But he was far and heavy on his feet.

If push came to shove, if Drake or Caine decided to attack them, Billy wouldn't outrun them.

Garret's hand gun took ten bullets per round. Naturally, after spending so much time in the FAYZ, the bullets had been used on windows and cabinet locks.

Edilio had only seen Garret use it on a person once, so he wasn't sure, God forbid it ever came to it, that he could shoot anyone.

Edilio waged subtly towards Dekka, who stood with a second group, a lot closer to the plant than him. Her "army" included Orc and Howard, mainly because Orc wouldn't move without booze to motivate him.

Dekka nodded at his signal and tried to shove the concrete boy awake. This was it. This was what they'd planned last minute. A last resort. She hoped that this stood a chance of working.

Orc stood slowly and loudly, almost crushing the SUV that the group was hiding behind. The boy picked up a girl who had fallen asleep on the grass on the other side of the truck. He placed her down, her shoes stuck in the dry dirt when she tried to run.

Dekka raised her hands. The girl floated a few feet in the air before dropping suddenly, hitting the ground hard.

"Listen to me," Dekka said, shoving the girl away from the plant. "You're going to walk that way, towards the beach, got it? Don't come back until dawn."

The warning was fierce, as fierce as the grip on her shoulder and as hard as the pointed look in Dekka's eyes. The girl took her seriously, brushing the ginger locks away from her face and stumbling on land.

Dekka turned, breathed, and started moving. But not before she saw the all-too familiar tall, lean shadow of a boy with a whip for an arm.


	3. THREE

Jack spent fifteen minutes drawing shapes in his head and erasing them again, waiting for Brianna to leave. He heard her pulling on her shoes as she left the house. She didn't look back to say goodbye to him.

It wasn't as if he expected her to, or anything. If he was believable in his fake-sleep, she wouldn't have a reason to say a goodbye.

Jack limped towards the bedroom door in his half-torn, sweat stained clothing. His power of inhuman strength alienated his nerdy, stick-thin exterior. So his normal clothing was torn from days of Manuel labour.

Jack peered out of the window in the hall. The streets were littered with starving kids and broken glass. He wished he had the power of flight to replace the fact that he didn't have shoes to avoid the shards. Jack dug around in the closet until he found another pair Brianna's worn out sneakers. Astrid had given her a new pair a while ago. Jack was just lucky that the shoes he had taken were only one size bigger than his own.

He pulled the handle of the front door and glanced outside, wary of the violent children on the streets. Maybe they were hungry enough to eat him?

Looking more like a homeless man than a scientist, Jack stumbled through the streets towards Sam's house, the main base of operations for Astrid, Mary, John, and Sam. He hid in the shadows, avoiding suspicious eyes.

Jack didn't bother knocking on the door, pummeled and beaten by Zil and his small uprising. He walked in hastily to avoid being seen, feeling that someone was watching him from a distance.

It wasn't his intention to find Astrid upstairs, lying underneath Sam's duvet. She was cuddling a pillow to her chest.

But she certainly wasn't sleeping.

Computer Jack had never been good with human emotions, especially when it came to girls and their complicated feelings about boys and food.

So it was very like Jack to awkwardly stand there until Astrid had calmed down.

He thought it could only be a minute or two, maybe three. But any time she was even close to stopping, she choked and started all over again.

"Uh, Astrid?" He said, taking a hesitant step closer to the bed.

"He's not coming back, Jack."

Jack raised an eyebrow. Another step forward.

"Sam? He's beated Caine before, he'll do it again."

His attempt at reassurance failed dramatically. Astrid started crying again.

"Look, you need to get moving. Sitting here and moping isn't doing anything to help Sam," he said. Jack was close enough to reach out and touch Astrid's exposed forearm. She flinched when he did.

Astrid sniffed and rubbed her eyes, feeling guilty and useless, but also feeling strangely motivated thanks to Jack's words.

"Yeah, sorry," she said. "I've got a lot on my mind."

"I-I think you're entitled to a few tears." Jack didn't really know what to say. He was scared that Astrid might sink back to crying if he said anything wrong.

"Where's Mary?"

Astrid was silent. She shrugged her shoulders shakily, before getting up and moving downstairs, probably to sleep off the stress in a place that didn't remind her of why she was crying.

Jack searched for Mary but couldn't find her anywhere, presuming she was still at the daycare.

He ambled down the stairs and saw Astrid sound asleep on the couch. After feeling around in the near-opaque darkness, he eventually found the kitchen.

He searched the drawers and cabinets for anything flammable, hopefully a cloth and a set of matches, or even a candle.

Jack found a cloth. He would probably need to steal a few bottles of cabbage alcohol from Howard's base up at Coats.

And then there was just the matter of fire.

After thoroughly checking the kitchen for any kind of fire starter, Jack came up empty.

Orc and Howard were saving Sam, everyone who might be at Coats was starving worse than Perdido beach was, if they weren't dead already.

He tied the cloth around his forearm and headed out the door with a newfound motivation in his step.

Carrie-Vernon Grace was eleven when her mother had died, mauled by a bear in front of her. Her father, Carrie's grandfather, hadn't taught his daughter how to survive in the wild.

Carrie's father was skilled in welding weaponry, having served in the royal army for eight years before settling down to run an ice cream parlour in the downtown area of Perdido Beach. He had taught her a few things about holding a knife - which she had traded to an older boy for headache pills. But she chose to make the most of his lessons for the time being.

After raiding the ice cream shop for weapons, she was now using one of his scoops to gouge out the organs of a stunned hare. It was hard work, finding the places where the organs ended and the meat began. It spurted as she dug, knocking into it's ribcage. She cringed, her father's memory was tainted.

The hare didn't seem to enjoy it that much either.

The innards of rabbits and hares alike were hideous and gross and slimy to the touch. She had never felt those before. Rabit teeth, to her memory, weren't usuallythis sharp, either. Not to mention, catching the thing had been very easy, easier than it would normally have been on the outside.

It probably morphed with something that it shouldn't have.

She didn't mind, though. Meat was meat. Even if it was as raw and disgusting as the rabbit hybrid that she was digging into for lunch tomorrow.

Carrie plucked a thin wire from her bag, bit down on a mark at a suitable length for it's feet, and wound it tightly. She slung it cleanly over her backpack, letting the last pieces of its chopped liver spill out on the dirt.

Carrie spat on it in distaste.

She heard a crack, a scurry, maybe a tumble to her west. It wasn't animal like, too heavy for anything living in this forest.

No, she thought. it's someone watching me.

She spun calmly, levelling her make-shift bow - in reality, a bendy, durable stick with some of the wire used to tie the hare's foot - towards the direction of the noise. She was silent, like any animal would be.

The person stumbled again, the same snap of branches sounded out.

The sound was spherical, not quite surrounding her. Carrie spun again, quicker and less thought out, more panicked. It was above her and behind her. Everywhere.

Whoever was here must have seen her. She could risk calling out... Couldn't she?

"Hello?" Her voice trembled. Hot air grazed the cold forest as the words left her chattering teeth.

Carrie was terrified. Her hands shook, she dropped her bow and arrow and fell to the floor, bawling like the child she'd always been. Covering herself from the scary darkness, imaging that she was underneath her bed, in her closet, inside a box. Whatever she could imagine that would call her nerves.

"I'm scared, dad. I don't want to die," she sobbed, hugging her knees.

"What a pathetic waste of a human being."

Carrie didn't look up, too lost in her own fear to meet the eyes of whoever was responsible for terrifying her.

Whoever it was crouched down until they were in her face.

"Did you hear me?" They said. "I said you were pathetic. Worthless."

She knew his voice. She knew the boy all too well.

Carrie had known him before the FAYZ had doomed the children of Perdido Beach.

Zil Sperry, once a bully, now the mediocre terrorist of the starving, barren town.

Being mediocre wasn't exactly an insult, though. His threats were empty, and his plans were usually ruined by Sam or Astrid. But that didn't mean he didn't have tough friends, not to mention the other bullies that had beat in her in the past.

They might be sent out, like hungry dogs, to beat on her again. Carrie raised her head in fear, tears stained her waterproof jacket and her red-rimmed eyes glistened with ones yet to fall.

"Hah, ugly bitch," Zil chimed childishly.

His girlfriend stuck her lip out in disgust. Carrie thought that every evil dictator needed a girl that was fake and obnoxiously pretty like Lisa. And she was probably right.

Zil grabbed Carrie by the hair, using it to drag her small body a few feet before dropping her. Carrie screamed in pain.

"I guess you're too weak to Carrie her, huh?" One of his goons jeered.

"Shut up, Turk!"

The noises were louder than she expected. Lance fished a small metal tube from his jeans pocket. It was probably the length of a toothpick and the width of two.

He blew it hard, the others didn't hear it.

Carrie shook her head, trying to get the incessant screeching out of her ears.

Lance stepped closer, noticed only by Lisa. Carrie continued to shake her head.

"Guys," Lisa said, drawing Zil's attention away from the argument. "Look," she said, pointing towards Carrie's trembling body.

"What's she doing?"

Lance took another step forwards, blowing harder on the dog whistle. She shook twice as hard, her head sizzling, her eyes squinting in pain.

He stopped suddenly. After a few seconds if adjusting, so did Carrie.

"She's a freak," Zil confirmed.

"She's a freak with or without the stupid power," Antoine said. "What's the point in good hearing?"

There was silence for a long time, everyone looked to Zil for a brilliant idea, a plan that they could use.

"W-we should take her stuff, leave her here to die. Bind her, blindfold her, y'know?"

Carrie started to notice that Zil's leadership skills were almost as bad as his strength. She was wondering why Lance wasn't the leader. Or, at the very least, had tried to overrule him. She didn't want to say anything, doing that would anger Turk. And he was the firepower.

But, looking at him now, even he was against Zil's idea.

Carrie looked at Lisa's hesitant face, as well as Lance's. Antoine looked somewhere in between sad and eager. Fueled with the need to please their "leader."

"Your c-crew don't seem t-too happy about it," she said.

Zil looked at his team, the Human Crew, and then back at Carrie. His eyes narrowed.

"We can take all her stuff, yeah? But I'm not leaving her to die out here," Lance said. "She's harmless."

Zil chose not to question it, even though he despised all 'freaks' and wanted them all dead. He saw a few nods around the group in favour of Lance's idea.

"Turk, do your thing." He gestured with an exaggerated commanding motion.

The beefy boy advanced toward Carrie with a heavy thud. She balled her hands into fists to stop them from trembling. He ripped her bag from her shoulders, taking the hare with it. And her spare battery, maybe the last working one in the FAYZ.

She hadn't gotten around to using it yet, because the flashlight that she owned needed two batteries.

Turk and Antoine fought for the food, Lisa walked with Lance to the hill above.

Zil sauntered over to Carrie once his group was up over the hill. Only Lance stayed to wait for him.

"Don't follow us. Not that you have the nerve to, or anything."

He turned to leave.

"Zil," Cassie called. He stopped, but didn't turn to face her. She stared at his back, unmoving. She was less scared to speak now that Turk was gone.

"Caine won't let you touch Diana, and you can't get close enough to Sam to kill him."

"W-what's your point?" He asked.

"You won't win the war. Even if you could kill them all, what then? Are you gonna be the big man with all the rules?"

"Of course I am, I'm in charge here!" He screamed, his fingers tightening on the sleeves on his stolen jacket.

"You wanted me dead, and they didn't. Then you had no choice but to agree and let me live."

Zil couldn't deny that, Carrie knew. Zil was useless without his crew.

"You're not the boss, Zil. You'll never be the big man. And everyone knows it!"

Up on the hill, Lance strolled off, probably meeting the others instead of waiting around. Zil saw him go and wanted to hate him.

"You're wiping out the people that other people need, people that are more powerful than you."

"Nobody messes with how we role, y'here!"

Carrie ploughed on.

"Sam is a bad leader, maybe worse than you, but he's a powerhouse. And Caine would rip you to pieces if you even tried to get near him!"

"That's not- you're not- UGH! JUST SHUT UP!"

"I'm right! And you know I'm right!"

Zil stormed away from the girl, convinced that the words she spoke were painfully true. They hurt a little, too.

Carrie got to her feet as the sun began rising. She wasn't in the mood for another confrontation with the Human Crew, or anyone else who was killing for sport. She was still hearing the scamper of an occasional rabbit by then, but remembered that she wasn't equipt to catch it.

She turned away from the forest and down towards the highway and started walking.


End file.
